


Life after life, age after age, forever

by Onceuponadisneypotter



Series: Half a Century of Poetry [4]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Happy Ending, I promised this series would have fluff!, I tagged this as major character death but like... the death isn't permanent, Multi, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, Reincarnation, canon WHOMST, i don't know her, inspired by unending love by rabindranath tagore, no beta we die like renfri, so now I am delivering!, there's mention of ciri too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25410373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onceuponadisneypotter/pseuds/Onceuponadisneypotter
Summary: Jaskier, being the son of an immortal goddess, was unable to die, but, being the son of a Fae, had to adhere to Nature’s rule that death is inevitable and would come for all. So, Jaskier would die, as Nature demanded, but he would, within five years of his death, be reborn.Or,Jaskier has fallen in love, and such a petty thing as death is not going to keep him from living happily EVER after.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Half a Century of Poetry [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1825762
Comments: 6
Kudos: 125





	Life after life, age after age, forever

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is inspired by the poem 'Unending Love' by Rabindranath Tagore. The poem is split up in pieces throughout the fic, but I will place the entire text of it in the endnotes.

Leaning against Geralt, Jaskier poked the fire with a long stick he had found that morning and used as a walking stick the entire day. ‘How manyth time is it now?’ He asked, his head finding the comfortable spot on Geralt’s shoulder where it had lain for many, many days.

‘Twenty-five? More?’

The bard shot up. ‘Did we miss our twenty-fifth anniversary?!’ 

‘Of our relationship? I believe we celebrated that one quite extensively. Wasn’t that....’ The Witcher frowned. ‘Didn’t we celebrate that in Nilfgaard? Did we know Yennefer by then already?’

‘We celebrated it in Cintra, and no, we met Yennefer a couple of years after,’ Jaskier corrected. ‘But I was talking about the twenty-fifth _reincarnation._ ’

‘That one you have passed for sure.’

‘Our twenty-fifth _together,_ you idiot.’

‘Hm.’

Jaskier leaned back against the muscled shoulder. ‘I missed this.’

‘You didn’t even _know_ about it.’

‘Still. Some part in me missed this.’ He felt Geralt’s arms wrap around him tightly, choking back a giggle as the Witcher pressed his nose against Jaskier’s neck and inhaled. ‘I’m glad I’m back.’

* * *

By all accounts, Jaskier should not have been born. Everyone knew - or, well, back when he was born for the _first_ time, everyone knew - that a Fae and a goddess could not have a child. But Destiny and Fate and Life thought otherwise, so there he was: the child of immortality born, his blood intertwined with that of strict Fae rules. This caused a whole heap of contradicting troubles, of course, but getting into all of those would take up several libraries’ worth of tedious academic books with cross-references, footnotes, asterisks and speculation, and the starry sky that night at the campfire was way too beautiful to bother with extensive explanations and analysis. The core of the matter was that Jaskier, being the son of an immortal goddess, was unable to die, but, being the son of a Fae, had to adhere to Nature’s rule that death is inevitable and would come for all. So, when Jaskier was first born, it had caused quite the fight between Life and Death, who each wanted him in his possession. And when Jaskier turned out to be quite the entertaining character indeed, Fate and Destiny and whole hordes of gods got themselves involved in this debate as well. When Jaskier angered the wrong person and got himself stabbed - his first death was truly a pathetic one, and he desired not to dwell on it out of sheer embarrassment - a deal was finally reached: Jaskier would die, as Nature demanded, but he would, within five years of his death, be reborn.

It took several lifetimes for all the rules to be smoothed out, but a couple of hundred years later the routine had become quite smooth. Jaskier would either be able to choose a gender or a family to be born in, and he would regain his memories the moment he met someone he was close to in his past life. If that did not happen, Jaskier would happily, ignorantly live out his days until his death, when the whole cycle started anew. It was quite a lot of paperwork, that was true, but he lived longer than humans did anyway, so, if he kept out of danger, it really wasn’t too much work. And after having gone through the process as often as he had, Jaskier knew most of the paperwork by heart and could fill it in with his eyes closed. Not that he _had_ eyes when he was dead, but that was an entirely different discussion for an entirely different moment. For now, Jaskier had just found his Witcher again, and they had to make up for lost time.

* * *

‘I don’t think we did,’ Geralt’s voice broke through the quiet.

‘Did what?’

‘Pass our twenty-fifth. You said it had been your - hundred and twenty-third life when we met, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, that was one life before the fall of Cintra. And that is no more than a thousand years ago.’

‘Well, my first three lives together were pretty short.’

‘Your last life was two hundred and ninety-nine years, Jaskier.’

‘Before that idiotic assassin had to cut me up,’ the bard replied, annoyed. ‘If he had waited just _two weeks_ I would have been three hundred. A _much_ better age. And I can’t believe they invented _photography_ whilst I was gone!’

Geralt smiled and tightened his arms around Jaskier again. It had been eighteen lonely years since he had last seen the bard, and he could not wait to make up for lost time

* * *

_I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…_ _  
_ _In life after life, in age after age, forever._ _  
_ _My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,_ _  
_ _That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,_ _  
_ _In life after life, in age after age, forever._

* * *

The first time Jaskier had died after meeting Geralt, the Witcher had been _distraught._ He had finally allowed himself to care, to love, to _be loved_ in return, something he had never done before. It had always been too dangerous. Humans died, most sorceresses were not to be trusted and other Witchers- well, other Witchers were nice for casual company, but Geralt had never managed to fall in love with the rough, hard men with as many scars on their hearts as their skin. Until Jaskier had stumbled into his life with a ridiculous song and bread in his pants and the smell of not-quite-immortality and dandelions and, after a couple of years, _home._ And then, when Geralt was fighting a particularly strong and energetic Zeugl, Jaskier had come too close and he was _gone._ Just like that, gone. Gobbled up, crushed and swallowed like a piece of crumbly sweet cake at a child’s birthday party. Gone.

When a young man who did not look like Jaskier but walked like Jaskier, talked like Jaskier and smelled like Jaskier approached him twenty years later with a smile and spoken secrets he could not possibly have ever known, the light in Geralt’s life had finally returned in the shape of a son of a goddess and a Fae, with in his mouth a thousand apologies of not telling Geralt about his heritage sooner. 

‘You see, I did not know myself! It was quite a shock actually, dying and suddenly remembering all my lives,’ the bard had explained himself. ‘But it turned out none of the loved ones from my previous life had survived! Red plague got them all before I finished the paperwork, you know how it goes.’

Geralt, with a dumbstruck face, had just nodded, even though he very much did _not_ know how it went when you died, having had remarkably little experience in that field himself. But Jaskier, in his new body, had rejoined him on the Path, and life had gone on as it had before the Zeugl and the Witcher’s twenty-year period of mourning.

* * *

The second time Jaskier had died after meeting Geralt, the white-haired man had been a bit better prepared. With a promise to be reborn in Cintra on his lips, the Witcher had held his husband as he bled out in his arms. Jaskier had stepped in to stop a girl from being raped but the attacker had managed to cut him before taking his last breath himself. Even with the promise of reunion the loss had not hurt any less, but Jaskier’s third life had taught Geralt the very valuable lesson of not going to look for Jaskier too soon, for the little five-year-old girl’s parents were not very happy with their daughter’s sudden change in behaviour after meeting the strange man who had taken care of the village’s drowner problem. And it wasn’t like he could take Jaskier with him, not whilst she was still so young. It had, overall, just been a really weird experience, and not one he was willing to repeat.

The third time Jaskier died, Geralt was not nearby enough to learn the location of rebirth, so Jaskier had chosen for a male body and let the location of his birth up to Fate instead. This time, he regained his memory after stumbling across his previous life’s childhood friend, now an old Professor Emeritus at Oxenfurt. 

It was during this fourth life that Jaskier said his first prayer. 

You see, having a goddess for a mother means that praying feels a bit weird. You do not pray to your friends or family, and to Jaskier that was, in the end, all what the gods were. If you could just visit the gods for a little chat, what use is prayer? But, as the Witcher lay bleeding beneath him, Jaskier had prayed. 

One of the perks of being a god is that time really has no hold on you, so the gods had debated for what would have been several decennia if time had existed, before arriving at their conclusion. The Witcher would be allowed to live, and he would be given some form of immunity. He would still be able to die but, since, with his mutations, his link to nature was weak at best, it would take a silver sword pierced through the heart three times to do him in. Destiny had not taken the vote against her plan (just kill the Witcher and see how Jaskier would react to it) well, and so Ciri was born and Cintra had fallen. Although the latter had truly been a tragic event, the former had actually turned out pretty great, and Destiny’s plan to ruin Geralt’s life had enormously backfired when the bard, the sorceress and the Witcher had taken young Ciri under their wings and given her the most loving youth any child could ever wish for. 

The fourth time Jaskier had died was in bed, surrounded by a family all of his own.

* * *

_Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,_ _  
_ _Its ancient tale of being apart or together._ _  
_ _As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,_ _  
_ _Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:_ _  
_ _You become an image of what is remembered forever._

* * *

‘Tell me what has happened whilst I was gone.’

‘They invented photography.’

‘I know _that._ I have been living for twenty years, you know. Tell me what happened to Eskel, and Vesemir, and Yennefer, and Ciri, and everyone else.’

‘Yennefer’s doing fine, she is still the head of Aretuza. We should visit her soon, she misses you. Ciri- I don’t completely know where Ciri is, to be honest. Or when she is. I last saw her three years ago, but she was older. She said she was the Ciri from ten years in the future. She was the one who pointed me in your direction before disappearing into the nothing. Vesemir, he- he died.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. He died in his sleep, his body finally gave up. He-’ Geralt sniffed. ‘He said that there were more wolves to take care of in death than in life. It’s just Eskel and me here.’

‘I’ll ask mum about his whereabouts next time I see her.’

‘Want to pass by one of her temples on the way to Aretuza?’

‘That would be nice.’

* * *

The fifth time Jaskier had died, he had not even met Geralt. She had been ten years old, and the plague had ravished her village.

The sixth time Jaskier had died, he and Geralt had managed to get themselves entangled in a war he still was not completely sure of how it started, and a poisoned arrow had hit him when he was distracted by a man trying to attack Geralt from behind.

His seventh life, Jaskier and Geralt and Yennefer had gotten a house with a vineyard where they had raised ten adopted children and just as many dogs. The house had always been a mess, but a _loving_ mess, and they had been happy. 

The eighth time, Geralt had finally gotten used to it. The burial ceremony was small, and more for show than anything else. The village they had settled in for the time being had loved the baker and the smith and the visiting sorceress, the odd trio who seemed polar opposites but adored each other nonetheless. Throughout all Jaskier’s lives, there was one commonality: he was always surrounded by others he loved, and he was always loved in return.

* * *

_You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount._ _  
_ _At the heart of time, love of one for another._ _  
_ _We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same_ _  
_ _Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-_ _  
_ _Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever._

* * *

‘It’s our twenty-fourth,’ Jaskier announced as he exited the temple. ‘Mum looked at the paperwork for me. So you better have something marvellous planned next time I die.’

‘Don’t think about dying yet, or Yennefer will murder you if you don’t see her this life.’

‘Ahw, so she _does_ care!’

‘I can’t believe I am saying this, but I do.’ 

Jaskier turned around, startled at the sudden voice behind him. ‘Yennefer!’

‘Decided to go for a male body again, I see? Such a shame, I really liked your last body, you know.’

‘Hmm, I got that idea last time, yes,’ Jaskier winked. ‘But it got boring after so long, just like you.’ His teasing grin was hidden in a firm hug.

‘I missed you too, annoying bard.’

* * *

His ninth life was the first time Jaskier met Yennefer before he met Geralt. Born to a nobleman he had been sent to the Zangvebar court where, several years later, Yennefer had made a diplomatic visit. The Emperor had not been happy with their _unprofessional_ relationship when they had been found in bed together, but the scandal it had caused did shorten trade negotiations drastically, and Jaskier had left with Yennefer and moved into one of her houses. It had taken them a year to find Geralt, who had, apparently, travelled to the Skellige Islands to try to find Jaskier there, but, if the Emperor could have seen the three when they were reunited he when the three were reunited, the scandal in his court would seem the most professional incident ever in comparison. 

The tenth time Jaskier died, Geralt had not been there to witness it. He had been out on the Path when Yennefer sent him a message notifying him that the bard had died and that she had said she would be reborn in Nilfgaard. A _P.S._ in Yennefer’s purple ink informed him that Jaskier had not forgotten of the promise to make him some apricot ice cream, but that he would have to wait for a couple of years for that promise to be fulfilled. 

The next time Jaskier got reborn, she made enough ice cream to feed an orphanage, which she, always the practical and generous woman, did. She also made sure to buy a new bottle of purple ink for Yennefer.

* * *

‘So we’re going to Aretuza, then?’ Jaskier asked after he freed himself from Yennefer’s embrace. ‘Or are you only going to take me up on that promise when I’m a woman? Because there’s a knife right the-’ fierce lips on his stopped him from vocalising that particular train of thought.

‘I just got you, I am not going to let you go.’

‘Nor I.’

‘So,’ Jaskier smiled. ‘The big, scary magic castle?’

‘Anywhere, as long as we’re with you.’

A whooshing sound followed by a sudden silence left behind it some footsteps as the only proof of the trio's presence outside of the temple. The soundproof walls of Aretuza's headmistress' sleeping quarters served to protect the students' innocent hears from hearing exactly how the three _made up for lost time._

It would be one hundred and twenty-four years before Jaskier would be born to a young, poor couple. A gorgeous baby girl with beautiful blue eyes and a magical touch. She grew up as a true pride and joy to her parents, who waved her good-bye as she took her bags to travel to Aretuza eighteen years later. 

* * *

_Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you_ _  
_ _The love of all man’s days both past and forever:_ _  
_ _Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life._ _  
_ _The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –_   
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Unending Love - Rabindranath Tagore
> 
> I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times…  
> In life after life, in age after age, forever.  
> My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,  
> That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,  
> In life after life, in age after age, forever.
> 
> Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain,  
> Its ancient tale of being apart or together.  
> As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,  
> Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time:  
> You become an image of what is remembered forever.
> 
> You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.  
> At the heart of time, love of one for another.  
> We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same  
> Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell-  
> Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.
> 
> Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you  
> The love of all man’s days both past and forever:  
> Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.  
> The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours –  
> And the songs of every poet past and forever.


End file.
